Once upon a time, in a country very much like our own, there was plenty of food, but there were established customs about eating it. People had theories, but no one knew for sure where the rules came from, or who was enforcing them, just that things had been done this way for a long time. The rules were not written down, but everyone understood them, having learned them from their parents, or from society, or perhaps never having learned them well at all, such that they seemed eternally surprising. Read more…

The day I met Jean Kilbourne I was in Dallas attending the International Boys’ School Coalition’s annual conference. Ms. Kilbourne showed the large international audience of mostly men and a few women her groundbreaking video, “Killing Us Softly,” about advertising’s representation of femininity in mass media, and how damaging it is to the self-esteem of girls and women and to the ways boys and men view them. Read more…